A blog about being alive and what life is. About how to change your life, about why we should or shouldn't do it.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Media, the new Buddha-teacher

Back in the days of the Buddha, enlightenment was almost impossible to attain. Today enlightenment is much easier to attain. Not because we're nobler beings, not because we've grown. But simply because we have access to a much, much larger amount of data about living. We see other peoples lives, fictional and otherwise, play out in cinemas, on tv, on facebook, in games. People are everywhere, and their lives are described in minute details in the public.

We now more about the pitfalls of being human than ever before. We know about sins we do not commit ourselves. We learn about the challenges of other people all the time. And the brain dissects all that data and it compares them to you and your life.

And you only need to do one thing to make all that knowledge help you on the way to enlightenment. You just need to be aware of what is going on in your mind.

Today most people experience enlightenment in some form or other. Extreme sports is the pursuit of that golden moment of enlightenment where the acts you do makes you forget yourself and enjoy the pure joy and fright of the moment. That is enlightenment. That is freedom.

Bored people experience enlightenment when they find that special moment where somehow it all makes sense. Busy people feel enlightenment when suddenly there's no more to do on the todo-list.

Buddha didn't have all that data, but he sat him self by the road and watched life roll by, he saw people passing by, and he gathered data about life. Day after day. Until suddenly his brain reached the tipping point and enlightenment was unavoidable.

Today, Buddha, would sit still in front of the tv for a month, and he would be enlightened. He would play games for weeks, driving himself to exhaustion, and he would reach enlightenment. Or he would dive into the worldly pleasures until they were no longer pleasures and he would become enlightened.

Today, Buddha is you. Just watch, be aware and let life go on, and you will get there. Enlightenment is for everyone.